Gaza is changed forever

When I called Hani, at around 11 o'clock this morning, he was driving through the ruins
of Gaza city. 'They have stopped bombing us - but you
would not believe what we have left - the sight of our city,' he says, sounding
exhausted, relieved and depressed all at the same time. 'It is just rubble
everywhere, and there are bodies in the rubble.' He tells me he's on his way back
to northern Gaza, to see if his house in Beit Lahia is still
standing.

The Israeli 'ceasefire' started at 2 am this morning. Hamas has accepted the
ceasefire, saying it is giving the Israeli military one week to completely
withdraw from Gaza. Apparently there
have been clashes already between the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters
in the northern Gaza Strip, but my friends and colleagues in Gaza city says the
city is now 'peaceful - thank God.'

Early this morning, medical personnel started the
exhausting task of digging reeking corpses from the rubble across Gaza. By
lunchtime they had already unearthed 95 bodies, many already partly decomposed,
to add to the some 1,200 people who have been killed in the Gaza Strip during
these last bloody three weeks.

Israel has consistently claimed it has been targeting
only Hamas and other 'terrorists' inside Gaza, not civilians. But the Gazans I speak to are
adamant most of the victims have been civilians, many of them shot, dismembered
or buried alive whilst cowering inside their own houses. At least 260 children
have been killed during this military operation - like fourteen year old Issa
Mohammed Abu Jarad, who was dismembered by an Israeli missile fired from an
unpiloted drone while he was collecting firewood for his family early on Friday
morning, 16 January in Rafah, southern Gaza.

Hours later, an Israeli helicopter fired a
missile at the house of 37-year-old 'Eissa 'Abdul Hadi al-Batran, who lives in
al-Boreij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The missile struck the house
full force, killing Eissa's thirty year old wife, Manal, and their five
children - Islam, Iman, Ihsan, Bilal, and three year old 'Izziddin.

One of the unforgettable characteristics of
this Israeli military onslaught against Gaza has been the number of families
who have been wiped out. Twenty seven members of the Al-Samouni family from
Zaytoun in eastern Gaza City were killed by the Israeli military on 6
January, including ten children, when Israeli troops fired missiles into their
house at closer range, despite knowing the house was being occupied by more
than 50 civilians. The survivors, who included eight children, were then locked
in the house for three days with their dead parents and relatives, and denied
food and water until the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
finally secured permission from Israeli troops to evacuate them.

My friends tell me Gaza is changed forever, grief-stricken and ruined,
and still there is no immediate prospect of the borders opening so people can
be released from this jail. 'We have
lost everything,' Mohammed, one of my friends in Jabaliya refugee camp, tells
me over the phone. 'My whole neighbourhood has been destroyed. But tell them,
tell the world, we do not want food or money - we just want our life back, and
we want our freedom.'

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The Gaza Blog

The Gaza blog is a weekly dispatch from the Gaza Strip. Louisa Waugh lives and works in Gaza, and her blogs capture the complexities and challenges of daily life under siege, amidst the aftermath of Israel’s devastating recent offensive.

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